Atlas Shrugs

OBAMA TARGETS WGN: Hey Barack, it's called, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, this is America

I understand his mama lived in 13 countries and that Obama is a citizen of the world!, a global gallivanter!, a Christian!, a Muslim!, a socialist!, a Marxist! a boulevardier!  but you're in America now and freedom of speech is the frickin nucleus of this great nation.

Once again, soviet style Obama is attempting to shut down truth tellers.  Imagine if treasonous Obama got into office. He would make the fairness doctrine look positively tame.

He tried to shut this radio show up a couple of weeks ago, remember?

WGN-AM again target of Obama campaign hat tip Cherrie

Chicago radio station WGN-AM is again coming under attack from the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama for offering airtime to a controversial author.

It is the second time in recent weeks the station has been the target of an "Obama Action Wire" alert to supporters of the Illinois Democrat.

Monday night's target was David Freddoso, who the campaign said was scheduled to be on the station from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Chicago time.

"The author of the latest anti-Barack hit book is appearing on WGN Radio in the Chicagoland market tonight, and your help is urgently needed to make sure his baseless lies don't gain credibility," an e-mail sent Monday evening to Obama supporters reads.

UPDATE: "Bones" writes:

Having been raised in Illinois, where members of my family have lived for starting on seven generations, now? I can tell you that Obama trying to stifle WGN's freedom of the 'press' is not a smooth move. WGN's been the largest, most popular radio station there almost since the dawn of radio. Daily listeners number in the millions...across a region covering four states.

Going after WGN would be the same as a New York senator trying to shut down the Empire State Building.

If Obama keeps this up, Illinois, his home state, will be in play.

UPDATE: Another victory for free speech and loss for Obama: (hat tip Van)

Department of Justice declines Obama's request to silence independent voices in the election

Religious Defamation Resolutions Are Setting a Deadly Precedent

I can't be there but are any Atlas readers in the DC area available to cover this?

Backgrounder on Ezra's Washington Gig Blazing Fur blogspot (hat tip Sounder)

A Congressional Task Force for International Religious Freedom (TIRF) will hold an off-the-record briefing to discuss the "defamation of religions" resolutions at the United Nations' Human Rights Council and their impact on the freedoms of religion and expression. While Pakistan (on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Conference) has sponsored these resolutions at the UN to counter "Islamophobia" since 1999, the effect has been a dangerous increase in restrictions on the freedom of religion and expression throughout the world that go beyond traditionally accepted international standards. The briefing is open to the public and will discuss the implications of these resolutions and how concerns of "Islamophobia" can be addressed while maintaining fundamental international standards

The rest.

STEYN, DON'T SURRENDER!

ATLAS ODE TO STEYN! (want more? go here)

Isabella the Crusader sent me the fabu news. The lawfare jihadi weenies are vewy scar-wed wight now. Malkin has dah money post here, "Well, well, well. Looks like the speech-squelchers in Canada want to back off their bullying of Mark Steyn and Maclean’s. Too little, too late:". Yeah baby.

The National Post’s Jonathan Kay reflects on unintended consequences:

[I]t’s fair to say that the Maclean’s imbroglio has been one of the biggest shots in the arm to Canadian conservatives in general. It’s turned red-meat right-winger Ezra Levant into a star blogger and a free-speech hero with brand-name recognition in the United States, turned Steyn’s name into a household word, created a debate within the Jewish community over its traditionally doctrinaire support for blanket hate-speech laws (Ezra for CJC president, anyone?), shone a light on the amateurish shenanigans of Canada’s human rights commissions, driven a powerful movement for reform of said commissions, and generally served to marginalize the pro-censorship lobby to the point that its main defender is now a disgruntled former journalist who fills his blog with unhinged conspiracy theories about how everyone who favours free speech is a racist.

All of which to say: Thank you, CIC. You’ve done a good deed — albeit unintentionally.

Stay vigilant.

Candid ....... Nightcap

Drinking with Spencer, Lappen, Warraq ....*CLINK*

Full coverage of the event:
FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

UPDATE: The Age of Hooper was there and has a great post up here.

IBN WARRAQ, STEVE EMERSON: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

Panel discussion ........ On death threats and fatwas: ...... more often than threats, Warraq has received letters from Muslim women thanking him for fighting for their rights.

Steve Emerson on Wafa Sultan: It's the first time an American has been forced to go into hiding in several years

• MARK STEYN REMARKS: PHOBIAPHOBIC - FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD
• ROBERT SPENCER: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

UPDATE: Read Ezra Levant's  take here.

MARK STEYN REMARKS: PHOBIAPHOBIC - FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

The remarkable Mark

Full coverage of the event here: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

• IBN WARRAQ, STEVE EMERSON: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD
• ROBERT SPENCER: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

UPDATE: Steyn's thoughts on the onference here:

An Albertan in Manhattan Mark Steyn

My fellow hatemonger Ezra Levant was a big hit at yesterday's conference on legal jihad in New York. In fact, judging from his reception, he and his inquisitrex Shirlene McGovern seem to be the two most famous Albertans on the planet. If I were Shirlene, I'd be pitching some sort of hate-speech show-trial show to Court TV. Ezra writes about the conference here, but he also makes some sharp points about the preposterousness of the Section 13 prosecutions: Why is it okay for Richard Warman, a private citizen, to join Stormfront and say that gays are a cancer, but it's a crime for Joe Schmoe, a private citizen, to join Stormfront and say gays are a cancer? Whatever happened to equality before the law?

Likewise, why is it okay for Canadian Human Rights Commission bigshot Ian Fine to quote in public a lot of offensive speech by hateful white supremacists to show the virulence that's out there, but, if I quote in public a lot of offensive speech by hateful Islamic supremacists to show the virulence that's out there, I get hauled up before his crappy commission?

The contradictions in this racket are what render it preposterous. In what Paul Wells calls her "barely lucid, rambling meditation", Ontario's head commissar gives the game away: Unfortunately she doesn't have the jurisdiction to jail Steyn for "Islamophobia", but she would if she could - so she's going to seek the power to do so when the Ontario "Human Rights" Commission is "reformed". I hope the Government of Ontario is dumb enough to give her the extra powers she seeks, and perhaps then she'll be man enough to haul me and Ken Whyte into her pseudo-courtroom and actually convict us of the crime rather than merely issuing the verdict in a press release.

The Toronto Star has figured out where all this is headed and they don't care for it. Nor do all the impeccably liberal progressive types quoted in Charlie Gillis' profile of Richard Warman, in the new print edition of Maclean's. The "human rights" racket has no friends and no defenders other than current commissioners, former commissioners and others living high off the "human rights" hog - and Barbara Hall is too tone deaf (or hanging out with too many sharia-hungry Islamists) even to notice.

ROBERT SPENCER: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

Sublime Spencer .... at  The Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Center for Law and Counterterrorism and The New Criterion event: Libel Tourism, “Hate Speech,” and Political Freedom

"I've just committed hate speech"

Full coverage of the event here: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

• IBN WARRAQ, STEVE EMERSON: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD
• MARK STEYN REMARKS: PHOBIAPHOBIC - FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

 

What Free Speech looks like

I am having trouble loading the video on the event -- give me some time (TAXES DUE!) Thought you'd enjoy .....

Bostom Rosett

Loverboy

Spencdr Warraq (champs of da free world)



Rachel!

Lunch!

The man!

Gaffney., Emerson, Warraq

Money quotes: Robert Spencer: Islamofascism is Islamorealism

Mark Steyn: I am phobiaphobic.

I will have more, more, more. Patience gentle friends

Reasons to be cheerful Part I FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

THE COUNTER JIHAD MAFIA from right to left Andrew Bostom, Cliff May FDD, Robert Spencer, Brian of London (Shire Network)

The first panel is speaking ..... Stanley Kurz is telling us things are better than they seem in Canada because perhaps the liberals are waking up to whats happening.....all it took for Canada to wake up was to have one liberal PM Keith Martin to stand up for Levant and the floodgates opened.

The restriction on free speech is no longer a slippery slope now we are  "careening down"

We all hang together or we we all hang separately.

The time is now to reform our nation's libel laws. Perhaps we ought to meet in London next year to see how far Rachel's law has fared in the UK.

Kimball, Kurz, Goldstein Levant

Rachel Ehrenfeld is speaking (RACHEL'S LAW!

Apparently, Bin Mafouz, the Saudi Billionaire that is suing Ehrenfeld and attempting to bankrupt Ehrenfeld has sued for libel 41 times prior to Ehrenfeld. Uh..... I see a pattern. But clearly the aim is clear .... to intimidate, destroy financially ruin anyone who speaks out against Islam.

Brooke Goldstein, Director of the Legal Project, MEQMEF - Pipes legal project to corral armies of lawyers (pro bono)  to fight the the litigation jihad. Very strong speaker. Warns the litigation jihad is gaining momentum with deleterious effect.

Ezra is da money. First he says it has been Americans that have come to his aid, in support, in increasing public aswareness, on the blogs - he called Americans the "grown ups of the world."

Levant is incredulous that a "fatwah" (the plaintiff cited Koranic verse in making his case) is prosecuted by the secular state.

He said the human rights commission are power without law. You can't win so they only way to fight back  is to take it to the court of public opinion.

The intention of all this  litigation jihad lawfare is not win, it is to demoralize, destroy .....but it is the process that's the punishment. One case is going on 25 years. Levant's legal expenses outside of the Western Standard are over $100,000.

He talks of meritocracy, rule of law, western values vs. "Saudi values". We have to vigorously pit our values against theirs

"a taboo is being broken".

I am vlogging the second panel on the supressing the discussion of Islam with Cliff May moderating, Robert Spencer (whose remarksd I am uploading), Claudia Rosett, Frank Gaffney, Steve Emerson and Ibn Warraq.

The theme of Spencer's remarks is islamophobia is really islamorealism.

The Godfather

Ezra and me

Spencer, Rosett, Gaffney, Emerson, Warraq

FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

NYC: All day conference today.  The most courageous truth tellers and fighters for free speech descend on the Big Apple to attend an historical conference: FREE SPEECH IN AN AGE OF JIHAD hosted by the  Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and The New Criterion. Luminaries include Mark Steyn, Robert Spencer, Ibn Warraq, Ezra Levant, Rachel Ehrenfeld, Dr. Andrew Bostom, Steven Emerson, Frank Gaffney, Claudia Rosett, Cliff May as well as other leading lights in the fight for free speech and against libel tourism. And I will be there reporting live.

These are the real rock stars of my generation.

Free Speech in an Age of Jihad
Libel Tourism, “Hate Speech,” and Political Freedom

Over the last several years, proponents of Islamic jihad have increasingly turned to thecourts and government agencies in their effort to suppress criticism of radical Islam.The result has been a proliferation of libel suits and so-called “hate speech” actionsthat aim to curtail free speech and further the cause of radical Islam. Although generally initiated in countries less hospitable to free expression than the United States, these actions have had a profound “spill over” effect on American authors, journalists, and publishers. The aim of this conference is to provide an anatomy of these efforts to suppress free speech, to examine the way such actions aid and abet the spread of radical Islam, and to consider some possible responses, legal as well as journalistic, to the threats they pose.

Opening Remarks: Libel Tourism & Political Correctness: 
Roger Kimball, Editor, The New Criterion 
9:00 am – 9:20 am

Panel I: The Face of Libel Tourism
9:25 am – 10:55 am

Moderator: Roger Kimball, Editor, The New Criterion
Presenter: Stanley Kurtz, Senior Fellow, The Ethics and Public Policy Center

Discussants:
Rachel Ehrenfeld, Director, American Center for Democracy
Brooke Goldstein, Director of the Legal Project, The Middle East Forum
Ezra Levant, Founder, EzraLevant.com

 

Panel II: Suppressing Discussion of Islam 
11:00 am – 12:30 pm

Moderator: Clifford D. May, President, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Presenter: Robert Spencer, Director, Jihad Watch

Discussants: 
Steven Emerson, Director, The Investigative Project on Terrorism
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President, The Center for Security Policy
Claudia Rosett, Journalist in Residence, Foundation for Defense of
Democracies
Ibn Warraq, Author most recently of Defending the West: A Critique of Edward
Said’s Orientalism

Luncheon Keynote Speaker: Mark Steyn, author most recently of America Alone, on
“The Dimming of Liberty: Legal Jihad and the Criminalization of Resistance.”
12:30 pm – 1:45 pm

Panel III: What Is to Be Done? Legislative Opportunities and Pitfalls
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm

Moderator: Jay Nordlinger, Senior Editor, National Review
Presenter: Andrew C. McCarthy, Director, Center for Law & Counterterrorism,
Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Discussants:
Hon. Robert H. Bork, The Hudson Institute
Daniel Kornstein, Kornstein Veisz Wexler & Pollard, LLP
John J. Walsh, Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP

Concluding Remarks: Roger Kimball, Editor, The New Criterion 
3:40 pm – 4:00 pm